Author: Tubesox
Title: Silent Houses
Rating: T for language and some sexual content
Summary: The break up of House and Stacy. Takes place after events mentioned in "Three Stories"
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. So there.
"What did you do?" he'd asked her. He hadn't had to. It was obvious. Half of his thigh was gone. Other things were gone as well, but that was obvious too. He didn't have to ask her, but he did just the same.
"I couldn't do it," she said, mascara running down her face like some angsty cliche. Broke his heart. He was sure that's what he was feeling, even though the morphine. He rubbed at his eyes, feeling the slight pull of tubes and wires, sneaking a glance at his thigh. Her hand was an inch from his leg, knuckles white and nails digging into her palm. He took her hand in his and squeezed. Eyes closed, he heard her gasp and sob, and felt his fingers bruise in her grip. He wished she would let go. She'd never let things go.
Wilson and Cuddy had thought he would toss her out on her ass. They'd both come to see him in his room, distracting him from daytime television. Conversations would start with shy greetings. Clinical questions about his pain. No, "How are you?" when they knew the answer. He was nauseated with pain. He was a cripple. His eyes were dead. But they asked for his pain scale because he kept pushing his morphine button. He didn't ask for anything. He didn't talk much at all. But he kept pushing the button, every time Stacy walked in the room. She'd been coming and going all day, busy with work. And he kept pushing the button.
"Maybe a five," he told them. They never brought his chart. He didn't blame them. Then they'd start talking about plans for PT. Bringing in the big guns. Sometimes Wilson would ask him to push his foot against his hand. Those times, the conversation would end there. Wilson would see him struggle and try his hardest not to cry out, and then he'd leave the room, promising a magazine and pint of ice cream with his return. But most times, both Wilson and Cuddy would bring her up. "She saved your life." "Try not to be too hard on her." And then the conversation would end.
He went home on crutches. One day, they told him, he could use a cane. But not yet. The four steps leading up to their front door, and the October frost on the ground, gave him reason to admit his limits. The house was quiet. Stacy didn't mention the handrail she'd had installed in the shower. She didn't mention the three new pairs of jeans she'd slipped into his dresser, three sizes smaller for his new gaunt frame. She told him there was pot roast in the fridge, joked that she'd hidden all the booze, and said she'd be back late. Work. He stood in the kitchen, propped up on his crutches, and stared at the refrigerator door. There used to be a picture there of him, Stacy and James, dirty, sweaty, and smiling after the PPTH softball tourney. It was gone.
They didn't fight. People thought he would scream. He'd always screamed, he'd always torn people down when they crossed him. He's always loved fighting with her most of all, because it was like a dance, a chess game, and a good fuck all rolled into one. But he couldn't fight her. Not over this. "Would you give up your leg to say my life?" He kept hearing that question. Yes. Yes. He couldn't fight her over this. But he couldn't talk to her either. The house was too quiet.
Weeks went by. He went to physical therapy. She went to work. They'd come home to each other and talk about their days. They talked about their dinner. They talked about going out, but never did. It took a while before he was ready for sex, but soon, that was another thing that they didn't talk about. It was great. It felt great. Maybe it was the best sex they'd ever had. She wouldn't let go. Not until the morning, when she'd go to work, and he'd go to the hospital. It didn't feel like they were going to the same place, but they were.
"Just one more rep," Gary said.
He didn't answer, but did as he was told. Sometimes he'd see James walk by. Glass made things so clear. People were worried, and his best friend was letting him know that. It was a month after he left the hospital, and still, he was barely speaking. They all thought he'd be screaming. The relief that they'd been wrong had long since faded. The halls of the hospital were too quiet, the thump of his new cane against the tile echoing all kinds of regret.
He'd just gotten out of the shower and was heading to the parking lot to wait for a ride from James when Cuddy caught up with him.
"How is treatment progressing, Dr. House?"
They'd always been stiffly formal at work, even though there was some history. But now, it seemed necessary. Another sign of change.
"Fine," he answered.
"I hear you might be coming back to work?"
"This place just isn't the same without me," he said, before walking out the door.
His first month back at work was hard, but he had a routine. He would leave the house early, before Stacy was out of the shower. He'd leave a note, something half-heartedly funny or sarcastically sweet. "Quickie in the cafeteria. Make it good; I'm selling tickets." He'd pull into the garage and park in the handicap spot that he'd staked out. Something far away from the doctors working under him and from legal and from oncology and from vascular. He spent his days in his office. He was Head of Nephrology, but refused to see patients. Dealing with his doctors was difficult enough. Gradually, he started talking again. Every day, he'd review patient files and catch stupid mistakes. He had to say something. He couldn't live with mistakes. Morris, the Chief of Medicine, told him to take it easy. He told him that he should start slow, take half-days. "Delegate," he said. But he stayed at the hospital until eight most nights, his leg screaming by then. He'd struggle to the parking lot, and sit in his car until he was sure he could drive home. Sometimes, he sat there all night.
"You want to go get a beer?"
He still couldn't speak to James at the hospital. He didn't know why, exactly, and that made him scared and angry and frustrated, but ever since coming back to work, he'd only felt safe inside his office. He couldn't stomach the clinic. He couldn't stomach Radiology. There were whole floors of the place that may as well have been in another country. And, unfortunately, James Wilson was a part of that world. He avoided Cuddy, too, but that didn't mean much to him, and he was sure it didn't mean much to her. But James, he knew, was hurt by it. He'd walk by Nephrology on the long way to lunch, hopeful that he'd pick up some company. But James always ate alone. His days were quiet, until he'd go home and call his friend.
"I'm supposed to do a thing with Stacy," he answered.
"Going out?"
"She wants to do dinner with Susan and Ron."
"Accountants. Fun."
"Yeah."
"So, you want to go get a beer?"
"I'll meet you there."
Things broke open in February. The worst month of the year. He'd read somewhere that February was home to most suicides and most massacres, but he wasn't sure if it was true. All he knew was that he kept pushing buttons, because he needed Stacy to let go. He hated this. He hated the words he couldn't say to her. You've ruined my life. You lied to me. You took my leg. You took my choice. So he'd work 60 hour weeks, go home, have dinner with her, keep his mouth shut, go drinking with James, say the word "cripple" dozens of times, go home again, slip into bed and wait. He didn't measure the distance between them by the amount of sex they had. The quieter he was, the more he agreed with her and did everything she asked of him and cooked her dinner and smiled at her with dead blue eyes, the more she wanted him, or the more she felt she had to prove. And he used it against her every time. If he winced when she held onto him, if he made a show of his pain, she'd do things to his body that left him speechless. He was sure that she hadn't meant to rob him of his voice. If he could only talk to her, he'd ask why they slept so far apart on their king-sized bed.
Finally, on February 7th, one hundred and twenty-two days after the infarction, he opened his mouth and unleashed the words that would make sure she would never come back.
"I can't do this anymore," she sighed.
"Don't like the potatoes?" he asked.
"Greg? Are you listening to me? I never see you anymore!"
"I come home every night," he shrugged. "I'm here."
"You know what I'm saying."
"Everyone told me to get back to work. Get back to normal. You told me I needed to spend more time with James."
"God, you're infuriating."
"So, what? You leaving?"
"I don't want to."
"You do. I bet you've already packed."
"Greg."
"It's fine."
"Excuse me?"
"It's fine. Go ahead. I'm supposed to meet James."
That conversation took place on the 5th. At eleven o'clock at night, two days later, he called her. He was drunk, and James was with him, trying to grab at the phone, trying to shut him up, trying not to hit him, trying not to cry over the car crash he was witnessing. He was drunk and he was slurring, screaming, You bitch, you took my leg but you might as well have killed me, you fucking bitch, you bitch, I can't believe you did this to us, I can't believe you did this. Then he was crying, Don't you ever come back, don't you ever come back. He couldn't breathe at that point, and he couldn't see, and his throat was closing in a blind panic. He laid his head against the cool wood of the bar, and heard James whispering, he'll be ok, I'll take care of him, just...I'll talk to you soon.
"She gone?" he asked James when he heard the cell phone click shut.
"Yes."
Later, with for more shots of Scotch in him, he broke his cane over his wounded thigh. He'd have gone back to crutches in the days that followed, if he'd had need of them. Instead, he didn't leave his couch. He stopped shaving, because he couldn't stand in front of the sink long enough. Or he couldn't stand to look in the mirror. He stopped ironing his clothes, because Stacy had taken the ironing board. It was on a list of things that the movers came to pick up. James oversaw the operation. He was used to divvying up the broken remnants of a happy life.
A month later, he was fired. He'd called the Head of Cardiology an asshole in front of a roomful of patients. He'd called a roomful of patients idiots in front of the Chief of Medicine. It was more than that, but it was enough. When Morris asked for his letter of resignation, he didn't argue. When Morris retired three months later and Lisa Cuddy took up the position and called him in and offered him the position as head of a brand new department, one that specialized in fixing mistakes, he didn't argue.
"You make me nervous when you don't talk," James said over Chinese and a celebratory case of beer that night.
"Afraid I'm plotting something?" he asked.
"Afraid you're going to implode and get stuff all over my tie."
"Nice."
"Seriously?" James asked.
"Right. Take your pick. General Hospital, spring training, Cuddy's new breast-baring power suit wardrobe, the sickest piece of porn I've ever seen, your impending divorce, how to reorganize my CD collection, my new theory that everyone lies, the comic timing of the hospital elevators, my need for a new Vicodin scrip, or departmental hiring practices?"
"Shut up," James laughed, but he couldn't help but look worried.
"You're such a tease. Now you got me all excited about this stuff."
"I'm sure you'll work it out of your system," James said.
"Oh, just you wait."
"My mistake."
"You better get used to living with mistakes."
"You too," James answered, and he couldn't help but look worried.
"Yeah." The conversation didn't end. But when he went home that night, his house was still too quiet. The light on the answering machine was blinking. If he pressed the button, he would hear her voice. Hi, it's Stacy and Greg. We're not home right now, but please leave a message. He would hear himself laughing in the background and saying something about a second billing. He would hear a message from Cuddy asking him to meet with her Monday about resuming clinic duties. But he didn't push the button. Some things, he made himself remember. He'd dry swallow his pills. He'd hold onto the handrail. He'd stare at his damaged thigh. But other things...he hit delete and recorded over the outgoing message. He knew what buttons to push these days. He was going to try to push them all. He wouldn't explain himself to anyone. He thought it would be obvious.
The End.